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So there I was on Friday night walking with clients after finishing a tapas tour and suddenly – whump! – I was face down on the pavement. I had tripped over a small curb (which shouldn’t have been there!) and my palms and my right knee took the brunt of the fall. After taking a moment to check pain levels it seemed like nothing was too seriously damaged and so I gingerly got up. I could walk okay but the area just below my knee was very badly bruised.
Next day I took it easy and by yesterday I barely noticed my knee at all during my day trip to Sanlúcar de Barrameda (more on that mañana). Then today I went to the gym and all was fine until I went to do a bit of stretching on the mat. Without thinking I got down on hands and… knees! … and YIKES!! Now my poor knee is more hurty than ever.
Anyhow, the thing that stuck in my mind after the fall was how embarrassed I felt. I mean, it was clearly an accident, nothing that was my fault or anything to feel embarrassed about. But it seems this is a common reaction to falling down. I wonder why.
casa azahar 
I hope your knee repairs quickly.
Why are we embarrassed when we fall? Because we are vulnerable when we do so. Because we worry people are going to think we are clumsy. Because we worry people are going to laugh. Because we, as adults, are supposed to be capable of walking without falling and we feel like falling down is an indication to others of some sort of our being incapable… Lots of different reasons…
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I agree – it is irritatingly embarrassing – even when skiing etc you can feel foolish where really it is just something to be expected.
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I think the most embarrassing thing was lying there on my belly like a beached whale…
Meanwhile, aside from the curb that shouldn’t have been there (it’s a pedestrianised street!) I blame my sandals. I’d bought these cute Mephistos to see me through until I could find some proper walking sandals. I’ve bought this style before and like them for being comfy and easy to slip on and off, but notice how the insole curves up at the front – perfect for catching on curbs that shouldn’t be there – and also that the toe area extends beyond where the toes end. Designed for disaster!
Well, not really. But not designed to be a sturdy walking sandal. They’re awfully cute though.
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Ice. And arnica.
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*googles arnica*
Well, maybe some ice…
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If your knee isn’t scraped raw the active ingredient in Biofreeze is a lot like arnica.
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I spent most of last evening in the hospital waiting room with my niece. She had been wearing flip-flops and was running down the hall in her building and tripped and gave herself a horrific rug burn just below her knee. It had been fine but is now swollen and red and hot. I told her she needed to get it looked at. Three hours later we had not been seen and she had had enough and we left. I feel really badly because she hates hospitals and I was sure that the wait wasn’t that long… It was just one of those nights.
A number of police cars were in the Emerg parking area and some woman was charged for slapping one of the triage nurses so there must have been something that had happened to slow things down. There weren’t actually that many people in the waiting area.
For some reason, too, the hospital, in some sort of misguided “efficiency” drive now takes patients in groups instead of calling them in one by one as a space is cleared… It’s like cooking hamburgers in batches and clearing the whole grill before putting a whole batch of patties on at the same time. Then you have to wait until the whole batch is cooked before getting yours. “All the leg people this way, please!” very frustrating.
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Hospital waiting rooms are the worst!
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